Sun Hang opened the car door, jumped out, and walked around the vehicle.
The condition of the off-road vehicle was fairly good. Except for the many new collision marks on the front, there weren't any other issues—gotta say, having a good reputation really worked in his favor. If it were soone else's car, daring to crash through a checkpoint like this, it would've already been blasted into a beehive by automatic weapons.
At the very least, the tires would definitely have been obliterated.
Yet none of the soldiers dared to stop him, allowing him to drive to this ghostly place by sheer persistence.
The remaining fuel in the vehicle was still plentiful, more than enough to drive back to Tianfu City along the original route. However, behind the car, the tire tracks only extended for a dozen ters or so before disappearing without a trace.
Sun Hang also wasn't sure if, while unconscious, he might have changed directions… If so, following this short segnt of tire tracks back could actually lead him further into the Surrendered Area.
"Anna?" Sun Hang called out, "Anna Demosheva?"
No response.
Sun Hang looked into the distance, vaguely seeing the outlines of mountains beneath the dark sky—but unfortunately, he wasn't familiar enough with the terrain surrounding Shuzhou to determine his location just by glancing at the shapes of the surrounding mountains… Not to ntion, in Sun Hang's view, all those distant mountains looked pretty much the sa.
A lot of mountains surrounded Tianfu City as well, and to Sun Hang, they all looked the sa too.
Sun Hang sighed, instinctively wanting to summon the Liquid tal Blade to hover beside him… But soon, he realized the problem.
The Liquid tal Blade had solidified, transforming into a hard wristband firmly attached to his forearm.
He tried to summon the mycelium, but there was no response whatsoever.
He drew a knife and sliced the pad of his thumb. A slight burning pain accompanied by crimson blood seeping from the wound.
The wound did not heal, and the pain did not dissipate.
Sun Hang furrowed his brow, took a step back, and leaned against the door of the off-road vehicle.
He realized that all his "abilities"… seed to have vanished.
He wasn't sure if the inside him had disappeared… because he didn't even possess the ability to sense s anymore.
"Have I returned to being a normal person?" Sun Hang sucked on the blood on his thumb, mumbling in his heart, "Is this the real world… or another layer of nested dreams?"
If it's a dream, what should he do to break free from it?
Sun Hang looked at the hunting pistol holstered in his gun holster.
He pulled out the gun, turned the muzzle, and aid it at his head.
The cold tal pressed against his chin, and with just a bit more force on the trigger finger, Sun Hang's head would burst like a waterlon dropping from a great height.
No, not just the head… With the power of this gun, having lost those special abilities, it could tear his entire upper body apart.
Only the parts below the waist would remain intact, with flecks of blood and flesh splattering like paint on the ground beneath and the body of the off-road vehicle.
Sun Hang took a deep breath and then put down the gun.
His intuition told him this was not a dream.
"In that case, why not just kill directly instead of leading to a place like this?" Sun Hang deactivated the gun's safety, "Could it be because… they can't kill ?"
"I've lost all abilities… As I am now, just an ordinary person. There's no reason they can't kill ."
"But when I had the gun aid at myself, that feeling was just too intense… It was as if they intended to induce into suicide… I even seed to hear a laugh of triumph…"
"And, when I put down the gun, that sigh of disappointnt tinged with anger."
"Was it an illusion? Maybe it was."
Sun Hang looked around again, opened the car door, and sat back inside.
"If I were to commit suicide, the Three Apes would definitely co to stop , wouldn't they?"
"Which brings up a possibility…"
"Did the existence that lured here and the Three Apes perish together to strip away my abilities?"
"So there's no effort left to finish off?"
"Or to put it another way… without abilities, I'm already no different from a normal person. Whether to get rid of or not makes no difference, and it's better to toss here to fend for myself rather than waste energy?"
Sun Hang took another deep breath, then cast these tangled thoughts out of his mind.
There were only two things he needed to do now.
First, survive. Second, return to a place belonging to human civilization.
After rummaging under the seat for a while, he found a dical kit that had been flattened, extracting a band-aid of unknown expiry from it—fortunately, the band-aid's adhesive hadn't expired.
"Damn… I got used to having self-healing abilities, didn't have to cut this deep." Sun Hang cursed as he bandaged the wound on his thumb, then reclined the seatback of the driver's side and crawled into the second row of seats.
Beneath the second row of seats was an ergency weapon box, inside which was a fully accessorized short assault rifle, three boxes of 100-round ammunition, and six grenades compatible with the under-barrel launcher… In the event of encountering a monstrosity, this rifle's firepower would definitely be more formidable than that seven-bullet hunting pistol without spare magazines in Sun Hang's hand.
Of course, that is assuming the bullets can affect that monstrosity.
"Weapons, dicine… and water and food…" Sun Hang ticulously inventoried the vehicle's supplies. Although many items stored on the vehicle had expired, military-grade canned goods and compressed biscuits, despite having a shelf life of only three years, won't go bad even after thirty years in a sealed environnt… They just might taste worse.
This wilderness gave Sun Hang a strong sense of depleted resources, with cloddy, cracked soil, lifeless shrubs… Coupled with this perpetual night, finding safe food in the wild seed as unlikely as having Yang Lian do a pole dance in a bunny costu for him in the office… The latter might still be possible in the future, but the forr…
"Compressed biscuits seem more reliable." Sun Hang reorganized the supplies, securing the loaded assault rifle to the co-pilot seat he could reach with a seat belt, then pulled out a marker to draw the first stroke of a Chinese character aning "one" on the lower-left corner of the windshield.
"Wilderness survival, day one, 9:17 a.m., location unknown." Sun Hang muttered to himself, "Phone battery at 72%, fuel tank at 60%, two spare fuel tanks full. Ammo left: 300 rifle rounds, 7 pistol rounds, 6 grenades. Food estimate enough for one week… Water might be a problem since even if conserving usage, there could be just enough for three days."
"Too bad there's no water filtration system in Yang Qi's vehicle… the water sources in the Surrendered Area are extrely hazardous. If after three days I haven't made it back to Shuzhou… I might have to resort to drinking my own urine."
"Imdiate tasks, find the right direction; secondly, identify my location, gather resources, and avoid possible threats."
"First, explore a distance of one kiloter in one direction, then return here." Sun Hang morized the distribution and shape of the surrounding shrubs, then turned the car around, driving in the direction of the ten-ter-long tire track "back."
Sun Hang drove very slowly, maintaining a tortoise speed of 25 miles per hour—the off-road vehicle had searchlights installed in four directions besides the headlights. Once all these searchlights were turned on, an area within at least a 50-ter radius around the off-road vehicle could be illuminated.
Light always brings a bit of psychological comfort in darkness.
Yet likewise, in the dark, the sole light source can make one a target.
[End of Volu 1]
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